ABSTRACT
In what follows, we shall go through the text of Fear and Trembling section by section. There are eight such sections, and as several commentators have noted, the first four of them look like different kinds of beginning. We are given a Preface, an ‘Attunement’ (or ‘Exordium’) and a ‘Speech in Praise of Abraham’ before Johannes gets to the three ‘problemata’ often thought to be the dialectical heart of the text. But even then, before beginning on Problema I, he gives us yet another preamble: a ‘Preamble from the Heart’. Then come the three problemata, followed by a brief Epilogue. We shall resist the temptation to skim the various beginnings in our hurry to get on to the problemata, and we shall not automatically assume that the problemata amount to the real ‘meat’ of the text. Though most attention is normally given to the notorious question of Problema I (‘Is there a teleological suspension of the ethical?’), we shall see that it would be a grave mistake to hurry past the early sections: they introduce aspects of Johannes’ concern that we overlook at our peril.
